John Gabel: Immigrant Achieving the American Dream … and His Role in the Early Days of Mills Novelty Co

John Gabel: Immigrant Achieving the American Dream … and his role in the early days of Mills Novelty Co. © Rick Crandall, 2016 This is an important, previously untold story from the early days of the creation of the coin-op gaming and amusement machine industry. It presents, with a rare first-hand account, a whole new view of how the Mills Novelty Company got its legs to become the largest and most successful in its field. However it is also an account of a man who exemplifies the strength of character, inventiveness and individual entrepreneurialism that has been the backbone that built the United States from a melting pot of immigrants seeking the American dream – and achieving it. This is a story that the late Dick Bueschel, the most recognized researcher and author of gaming machines, would have loved to tell in this degree of detail. In fact it is partially due to him that I can. As a tribute to Dick’s passion, enthusiasm and tireless efforts to bring information to light about all aspects of the automatic entertainment-machine history, I will channel Dick and write the next paragraph in his inimitable style: “Random finds might seem pure luck – and in a way they are – but if you work to make your own luck you just might have the same experience, often when you least expect it. The determined are in for a lot of heartache and wasted time. But … if after hard work, they finally make an original find … It’s a thrill that’s hard to describe. The stories are banter for a collector gathering with the exceptional tales becoming the collectors’ story of a lifetime.” Discovering the combination diary and autobiography of John Gabel, the source of the rest of this story, is exactly one of those finds – Rick Crandall Here is a real excerpt from Dick’s writings: “One of the excitements of collecting gaming-machine paper is that you become the purveyor of rare knowledge, the keeper of a long-flickered flame, and the holder of history. For myself, I long ago realized that although I wanted to collect every slot machine ever made I could not do so by virtue of limited machine-discovery, money and space. Yet, within the confines of four 4-drawer, legal-size filing cabinets, by concentrating on their paper, I can own them all.” “The slot-machine boom of the late 1890’s was a function of the growth and inventiveness that exploded with the rapid expansion of machinery for mass production, steel foundries, machine shops – all part of the advances in the Industrial Age. Where a few scattered slot-machine manufacturers had existed in the early 1890’s, by 1897 many of the big names were being founded.” “When Herbert S. Mills first bought his father’s M.B.M. Cigar Vending Machine Company in the summer of 1897, [first producing] his early counter Kalamazoo, Klondyke and 5-way floor model The Owl. It was the Owl that made the whole idea of antique slot-machine collecting possible. It was the first successful all-mechanical floor machine with a color wheel payout, one of the first machines made by the newly formed Mills Novelty Company and the first slot machine to sell in the high 1000’s thus making it available in some numbers 75 years later. It was invented by Mortimer B. Mills, father of Herbert S. Mills, in 1897. Herb Mills, a barn burner, bought his father out and brought out the Owl early in 1898. It literally made him and the Company overnight. The Owl symbol also became the firm’s trademark.” That last paragraph is how Dick described the Mills Owl – but by the end of this story we’re going to re- write and enrich the story – and a man by the name of John Gabel will take on a whole new light. You 1 will learn from this account that without John Gabel, there might not have been a Mills Novelty Company! John Gabel – Early Childhood – In His Words “On the 24th day of May in the year 1872, I was born in Metzenseifen, Hungary. The mother tongue of the Metzenseifians is Low German. I remember well my family and the living conditions in my home when I was 3 years old. My father was a master nail smith and employed three fellowcrafts in his own shop. Every day I ran down to the shop with a potato in my hands. The boys would bake it for me over the fire. After eating the potato, I usually fell asleep on a pile of coal and, at quitting time one fellowcraft carried me home. At the age of six, I started to school. My school days were limited to less than two years, scattered between the ages of six and ten. They were broken up by one sickness after another. At the age of ten, I was sent to work. I do not remember anything pleasant about my childhood days. At the age when most children have fun and excitement, I was down with some kind of disease. Scarlet fever was most unkind to me as it left me with a lot of sores on my head. These sores were not only painful but unpleasant to look upon. This condition prevailed until I was 13. At the age of 8, I suffered from a severe case of smallpox. My Metzenseifen’s first inhabitants were German. head was so badly swollen that I was blind They were known for operating ironworks making for two weeks and unconscious most of the blades, shovels and nails from iron. ore. time. It was thought that I would die as other children of our town who had milder cases did not live. In those days, the doctors did not know much about contagious diseases. The doctor in our town was very old and I believe that he knew very little about medicine. He usually prescribed a home remedy for his patients. At the age of nine I lost my mother. She and I contracted Typhoid fever on the same day. Mother died and I recovered. When I was 10 my father married again. As a helper at age ten I worked in the shop with my father near our home. The work was hard and the hours were long. While working in the shop, I saw much misery among the apprentices. Along with their hard work, they were beaten by the masters. I saw them struck with a hot iron and their flesh burned and blood streaming down their faces. When they were unable to see, they were sent to the river to bathe their wounds and told to return to work. About the end of 1883, my father moved his tools to a shop in lower Metzenseifen, about three miles from our home. Father and I worked together in this shop for about six months. Finally, he had to give up as master and take a job as helper. I was given to another master. My new master was a very fast worker. We started at 2 o'clock in the morning. At 7 o'clock, we stopped a half hour for breakfast and by noon we had to have one thousand nails finished so that the master could go home. In addition to helping to beat the nail out of the hot iron, the helper had to attend the fire, get the iron white hot and count every nail as it was made. Woe to the helper who made a mistake in his count. 2 At the age of 12, I worked as a blacksmith's helper. Our home was 3 miles from the shop. At that time the blacksmiths in our town chose very peculiar hours. We worked from 2 o'clock in the morning until noon. The helpers stayed to pack the finished product, clean up the shop, rebuild the firepot and prepare enough charcoal and iron for the next morning. Then there was a 3-mile hike, not for exercise but to get home. I can remember many summer afternoons that I was too tired to go into the house when I reached home. I would lie down on the front lawn and sleep. When my father came home, he would pick me up and carry me into the house and put me to bed. He knew that I needed the sleep more than the dinner (such as it was) because I had to be up very early the next morning to return to work. The master had all the power and he was the judge; the apprentice had no rights at all. In those days, the boys and girls of European countries had to enter into contract with a master of the trade which he chose to learn. The duration of the contract depended upon if the parents could afford to dress the boy during his apprenticeship, the contract was for three years. If the master had to clothe him, the boy had to work for four years to pay for the clothes and board such as the master supplied. After a boy had labored for four years, he was still at his master's mercy. His entire future working career was hinged on his master's good will and temperament because he was the only man who could declare him a fellowcraft. The master presented him with a book into which he had entered the history of his behavior during the four years, after which it was stamped with the city seal.

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